Introduction: As the eldest son of Wen Zhengming, Wen Peng adhered to the family learning, and was good at both true, grass, subordinate, and seal. But his main contribution was in the field of seal engraving, the founding of the sect, far-reaching influence, creating a new era of Chinese printing.
The Wen Peng family is very knowledgeable, has attached importance to Confucian culture and artistic accomplishment for generations, and as the eldest son of Wen Zhengming, he is deeply influenced and influenced by his father, and has adhered to the family study well. On the basis of learning and inheriting his predecessors, with the artistic mentality of the big pattern and the spirit of independent innovation, he finally made many impressive achievements in poetry, calligraphy, painting, and printing.
The double knife edge engraved in Wen Peng's writings has been highly praised by posterity. In the art of seal engraving, he opened a sect and became the founding ancestor of the literati seal carving, which had a far-reaching influence.
Wen Peng's masterpiece "QinQiao Leaning on the Pine Playing With Cranes"
Wu Zhongcaizi Wen Guobo
Deeply influenced by family learning, Wen Peng inherited the mantle of his father, and showed outstanding talents in poetry, books, paintings, printing, etc., and his outstanding achievements in art have influenced future generations.
The Suzhou area of the Ming Dynasty was a place where literati gathered. Wumen artists with a good life showed contempt for power, status, and fame to varying degrees, yearning for pastoral life, and entertaining themselves with poems, books, and paintings. Suzhou Wenshi, poetry, books, painting talents, generations of people, from Wen Zhengming to Wen Peng, Wen Jia, Wen Yuanzhao, Wen Yuanfa, until the Qing Dynasty talents, has long become a good story in the history of art. Wen Peng is a prominent and representative of Wen's poetry, books, paintings, and seals, especially in seal engraving.
63 Draft Poems
Wen Peng was born in the eleventh year of the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, and the character Shou Cheng, the number three bridges. A native of Suzhou, he was the eldest son of Wen Zhengming. When he was a teenager, he was quite conceited about winning the name of merit, and the so-called "straight sac in the visual department" was indeed ranked high in the county test. However, when it came to the township test, it was also ten attempts and did not win. It was not until the age of 59 that he was the first to teach jiaxing province teachings in the court examination, and then promoted to assistant teacher of Guozi, Shi was doctor of Guozi, and most of his life was a scholar who taught people's children. He served as a doctor of Guozijian in Nanjing and Beijing, so he was called Wen Guobo.
Wen Peng shan zhen, xing, cursive, you gong caoli, aggressively his father. In addition to refining poetry and painting, he also pushed the aesthetic level of seal engraving art to a new height in retro form, and at the same time established a solid bridge from Qin and Han to modern times, which can be called the most prestigious seal engraver in the late Jiajing period.
Cursive "Snow Book"
Do not follow the footsteps of the father, and become a family law
Compared with his father Wen Zhengming, although Wen Peng was not as skilled as his father, xiao's qi was far superior. His cursive writing is idle and unruly, staggered, and full of vigor, and he is also the head of his father Wen Zhengming and Sun Guoting, and he is very skilled. The small kai is succulent and round, the lines are rounded and mature, and the body is stretched naturally. The penmanship of the seal is spontaneous and natural.
Wen Peng's artistic accomplishment is comprehensive, and he is good at various fonts such as seal, li, true, line, and grass. It is evident from the early and middle works handed down, especially the works of xingshu, that he was influenced by his father's calligraphy, and the two-person writing pen is very similar to the knot. Many of the Wenzheng Ming xingshu that have been handed down in history, especially the large character xingshu imitating Huang Tingjian's body, are said to be ghostwritten by Wen Peng.
Under the influence of his father's calligraphy, Wen Peng took Zhong Xuan and Wang Xizhi of the Wei and Jin dynasties, and gradually used the Jin Dynasty to participate in the Tang and Song Dynasties, drawing nutrients from the calligraphy of Sun Guoting, Huai Su and even Mi Fu, and finally achieved a body with a law and a family of its own.
Its Xiao Kai is both stable and symmetrical, but also vivid and beautiful, with bone and flesh, round and textured, elegant and peaceful, quite the charm of Zhong Xuan and Wang Xi's Xiao Kai, which can follow in the footsteps of his father Xiao Kai.
Lishu "A Thousand Words"
Its Lishu works, the body of the book traces the charm of the Han Monument, fresh and elegant, graceful and colorful, its font changes the flat length of the Han li to the square, even rectangular, a broken Lishu pays attention to the horizontal pattern, the font distribution is uniform but there are changes, with the pen to dry, to break the sluggishness and enhance the sense of agility, in some aspects, its level of lishu is no less than its father.
Wen Peng's seal book works have not been passed down, but with his proficiency in the six books and his proficiency in seal carving, the level is not difficult to imagine.
On the basis of inheriting his father's flipping and turning operation, his cursive writing is changeable and arbitrary, mostly based on Sun Guoting and Huai Su, and his scattered spirit and flamboyant boldness can rival or even surpass his father. As King Wenzhi of the Qing Dynasty commented, "Proficiency is not as good as the father, and Xiao San's anger is excessive." It can be seen that the talent and charm revealed in Wen Peng's book are to some extent better than Wen Zhengming.
"Self-Narration Interpretation"
Strive to chase the Qin and Han, retro correction
Wen Peng had a deep study of the six books, and according to the tooth seal used in the "Biography of the Indians", he personally dropped the ink and asked Nanjing Li Quartz to engrave it. His status in printing is much higher than that in calligraphy, and he is recognized as the founding master of the Ming and Qing dynasties of seal carving.
Seal carving, from the Three Dynasties of Xia and Shang, the Spring and Autumn Warring States, to the Six Dynasties of Qin, Han, Wei and Jin, is mainly practical, and there is no literature sufficient to prove its artistic value. From the Sui and Tang dynasties to the Song Dynasty, although the art of calligraphy and painting reached a brilliant state, the art of seals did not develop accordingly. In the Yuan Dynasty, Zhao Meng's self-use Zhu wen seal round xiuya began to be praised by posterity and the teaching method. But the simple and natural high style of the Qin and Han seals has disappeared. It is Wen Peng who really "directly adheres to the pulse of Qin and Han" in practice and carries the banner of "retro and new" in the field of printing.
In the face of the dull, shallow and grotesque printing style of the early Ming Dynasty, Wen Peng advocated restoring the simple, ethereal, plain and dignified natural and simple appearance of the Qin and Han seals, and pursued an elegant and simple style. Therefore, the lines of his seal engraving works are simple and beautiful, almost comparable to Han Li and Qin Seal, Bai Wenyin learns from Qin and Han, pingzheng square, solemn and strong, Zhu Wenyin learns from Yuanren, elegant and flowing, and is close and appropriate.
The Seal of Wen Peng
Wen Peng also appreciated the simple and natural "mutilated" beauty of the seal from the very ordinary phenomenon of long-term weathering and erosion of ancient seals. It is said that "when the ancient chapter is carved, it will be placed in the middle of the coffin, so that the boy can shake it as best as possible." Let it be carefully cured, without revealing traces of artificial carving. Later, the printing techniques of the Rulers knocking on the edges and removing the corners were all derived from this.
In the seal engraving technique, especially the knife technique, Wen Peng is also very distinctive. His knife technique is skillful, can well reflect the meaning of the pen, but also quite a knife flavor, the so-called "non-knife non-pen, but also knife and pen" is also. He also set a precedent for the use of double knife engraving on the indian side. Its side characters are loose and bone-like, and the tone is beautiful and elegant, which is deep in light elegance. The invention of the engraved edge model has enriched the viewing content and aesthetic standards of the art of printing. Wen Peng combined the "knife" in the seal with the "pen" in the calligraphy, which is of great significance. The so-called "printing from the book" of later generations has developed from this.
Seventy-two peaks deep
In short, as a comprehensive artist, Wen Peng's achievements in all aspects of culture and art are very prominent, and he is a prominent representative of the descendants of the Wen family. At the same time, the breadth and richness of Wen Peng's art made him a mainstay of the literati art circle in the Middle and Late Ming Dynasty in Wumen.
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